1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a web server for causing a designated printer to perform print processing of print information from a plurality of clients through the internet, a controlling method thereof, and a program storage medium.
2. Related Background Art
On a system including a server/clients and a printing device (printer) connected through a conventional network, e.g., a LAN, when printing a document based on a document print command from each client, the following processing is executed.    (I) Under a network environment such as a TCP/IP according to a LAN (Local Area Network), when a system constituted by the server/clients and a printing device (printer) is used to output a document to the printer on the network based on a document print command from a client, a large-scale system operation provided with various functions such as access management, management of various hardware and software resources, management of various data and others is executed.    (II) In a system on a network constituted by the server/clients and a printing device (printer), a printer suitable for an object of document printing is selected by a user using a client computer; document print attribute setting data (a paper size, a direction of paper, a resolution, a print layout, a form overlay specification and others) appropriate for this printer is created; and print data based on the document is transmitted to the printer or a print server for managing this printer. Thereafter, when again printing the same or similar document, document print attribute setting data appropriate for the target printer must be again created by the client computer. Further, when printing the same or similar document from a plurality of clients, the document to be printed must be prepared in each client and the document print attribute data must be set for each client.
In the prior art, however, when outputting the data from a remote client to a specific printer through the internet by a communication network and when printing by using an attribute setting matched with an output mode of the document, the following problems occur.
At first, in the prior art described in (I), the print processing to a remote site through the internet is not taken into consideration. Therefore, when realizing the print processing to the remote site through the internet, a large-scale system provided with various functions such as access management, management of various kinds of hardware and software resources such as a document editing application, a printer driver and others, management of various data and others must be operated with the similar scheme at respective physically remote places, and hence a cost for using lines in communication, a cost for maintaining facilities, a cost for operation/management and others are vast.
At second, since the prior art described in (II) takes reuse of the same or similar document for printing into consideration, the client must regenerate the document print attribute setting data when printing the same or similar document. Additionally, the prior art does not take into account that the same or similar document is printed from a plurality of clients. Therefore, when printing the same or similar document from a plurality of clients, the document to be printed and an application which can make reference to this document must be prepared by each client, and the document print attribute setting data must be set in accordance with each client. Thus, the document printing job in this network environment is very inefficient, and when the print attribute setting data must be updated, the setting in all the clients must be manually carried out, which leads to an increase in cost.